The 1983 Clyde Drexler Police Card Project
Project 22
Some cards become collectibles. Others become lifelong pursuits.
The story and ongoing pursuit of the 1983 Portland Trail Blazers Police Clyde Drexler card.
P22-018P22-018The Card
1983 Portland Trail Blazers Police
Clyde Drexler #22
A small regional card from Clyde Drexler's rookie season, produced years before the 1986 Fleer card most collectors associate with the beginning of his cardboard legacy.
Project 22 exists to document this card, understand its history, compare surviving examples, and preserve the story of a regional issue that is easy to overlook.
Why This Card
One card became a pursuit.
Most basketball collectors know Clyde Drexler's 1986 Fleer rookie card. It is one of the defining basketball cards of the 1980s and the card most often associated with the beginning of Drexler's collecting legacy.
My favorite Drexler card is something much less familiar: a small, regional issue produced during his rookie season with the Portland Trail Blazers, the 1983 Trail Blazers Police card.
For more than a decade, I have searched for every copy I could find. They do not surface often, and when one appears at a reasonable price, I usually buy it.
What began as an appreciation for one card eventually became a collection, and now, Project 22.
The Collection
18 copies. One card.
The collection is presented as a group first. When a physical copy can be tied confidently to a documented purchase, that provenance is noted. When it cannot, the acquisition remains unassigned rather than guessed.
A note on provenance: purchase records survive for much of the current collection, but several physical copies can no longer be matched confidently to a specific transaction. Project 22 preserves that uncertainty instead of manufacturing a cleaner history.
The Beginning of the Story
Every collection has a beginning.
Mine just was not documented.
Every collection has a beginning. Mine just was not documented.
I began collecting the 1983 Portland Trail Blazers Police Clyde Drexler card well before 2018, likely more than a decade ago. Many of those early purchases predate any available purchase history, and I was not keeping detailed records at the time.
While the earliest surviving anchor of the current archive is my PSA 9, graded in 2018, the pursuit had already been underway for years.
Read the extended huntThe Story Continued
The next year.
Project 22 is centered on the 1983 issue, but the visual language continued into the following season. Seven examples of Drexler's follow-up card have found their way into the collection too.
Raw cards
6 copies
Graded card
1 copy
The Hunt
A collection that changed shape over time.
The early years
The card had already been part of the collection for years. Several copies were later graded or sold, but the earliest acquisition history was not recorded.
A surviving anchor
The PSA 9 that now serves as P22-001 was graded and remained in the collection.
Grading and selling
Two PSA 5s, an SGC 8.5, and an SGC 8 were graded from raw copies and later sold.
The current collection takes shape
Purchase records begin to align with the copies that remain in the collection today.
An autographed copy
A signed example joined the collection and is now cataloged as P22-012.
Project 22 takes shape
The collection reaches 18 current copies and the card begins to be photographed, cataloged, and researched as a formal project.
Go Deeper
The collection is only part of the story.
Project 22
The search continues.
Current collection: 18 cards